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I had a scary film weekend.
Sunday I started screening submissions for First Sundays, a film festival that shows short comedy films every first Sunday at the Pioneer Theater on the Lower East Side.
After being forewarned by First Sundays co-producer and extremely nice guy Jay Stern that a lot of what I was going to see would be very, very bad, I was just happy nothing I watched was truly unwatchable. What scared me was how easy it was to make a bad film.
The main problems these submitted films had were 1) length and 2) the lack of a strong central comedic idea (know in the film business as a "joke.") It's unfortunate because a lot of bad work looks like it took time and effort to put together, and when the idea isn't there, there's really nowhere for the film to go.
This made the good stuff really stand out, but it also made me start to second guess my own writing. Did I have a strong enough motivation for the protagonist? Where could I tighten the dialogue? That sort of thing. Yesterday I spent rereading both my script and my blog.
This self ego-busting occured at Cafe Doma and Esperanto Cafe in Greenwich Village.
As far as writing, neither was worth a second visit. Cafe Doma was pretty (ceiling fans!) but way too crowded. In a writers cafe, people do not talk very much because they are writing. It was loud enough at Doma that Gorillaz wasn't cutting it and I had to switch to Robert Walter's 20th Congress turned up all the way. It might be okay on a Tuesday around 2:00, but part of the point of a writer's cafe is that you, the writer, are always welcome. Cafe Doma was more than I could be bothered to deal with.
Esperanto Cafe was recommended by my cousin the revolutionary. Earlier this week I had to explain to him that a writer's cafe was not just a place with WiFi. A place with WiFi is where people come through, they get a coffee, they browse the web, they talk to their friends. A writing cafe is a bunch of people hardcore focused on their writing. That said, Esperanto was about what I expected. It was mostly college kids chattin' and doing their college thing.
As far as my writing, it seems to hold together better than I expected. I especially enjoyed rereading this blog. I update because I can't stand not having new content for me to read, like a fashion designer who makes whatever's missing from her closet.
We're getting to the end of this little quest of mine, with just a few scragglers to pick up. It's been a fun little ride.
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